What's the buzz?: Cheech Marin talks art, cannabis at Boxborough convention

Comedy genius, counter-culture icon, cannabis poster child and champion of Chicano art Cheech Marin will be the keynote speaker at the inaugural HighLifeStyleShow happening Friday through Sunday at the Boxboro Regency Hotel & Conference Center, 242 Adams Place, Boxborough.

Produced by Northeast Comic Con and Collectible Extravaganza creator Gary Sohmers of Hudson, the HighLifeStyleShow brings cannabis consumers together with brands, dispensaries, distributors, growers, artists and performers for a weekend of concerts, comedy, education, celebrities, socializing and networking.

Planning to deliver a keynote address on Saturday that is “as funny as I can make something serious,” Marin will enlighten the audience about his nearly 60 years long relationship with cannabis, in addition to signing autographs and posing for pictures with fans (for a fee) Saturday and Sunday at the 21-years-old and older event.

Marin said he’s not surprised that cannabis has become mainstream and legal all across the country. But he did say he’s surprised how look it took.

“When you have, I don’t know what the number is, 37 or 39 states have some form of legalized marijuana, that boulder’s rolling downhill now,” Marin said. “You can stand in front of it. I just wouldn’t.”

In addition to his stellar comedy career that stretches back more than 50 years, Marin — best known as one half of the comedic duo of Cheech & Chong — is very proud of the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art and Culture at the Riverside Art Museum in Riverside, California.

“It opened four months ago and we’re doing land-office business. We’ll probably quadruple the size of attendance of the Riverside Art Museum does in a year,” Marin said. “We’re doing very well. Everybody seems to love it. They were coming from all around the United States. And now worldwide destinations are coming to the center in a very short time. We’re very happy.”

A proud Chicano (Mexican-American) himself, Marin donated his collection of over 700 pieces of Chicano art, the largest collection of such art in the world, to the center, which will provide a location for the celebration, presentation and study of Chicano art.

“I’ve been collecting Chicano art for a good many years and touring it in various iterations throughout the country. And I was doing a show at the Riverside Art Museum and it was a huge success for them,” Marin said. “Long story short, they saw the success of the art show that I put on at Riverside and offer me a building to house the collection. And it just fell out of the sky for me. So it’s really amazing.”

In his wildest dreams (and he has some wild ones), Marin said he never thought his name would become synonymous with Chicano art.

“It was too big of a dream for me to ever dream,” he said. “I thought that this is not going to happen, because people asked me all the time, ‘Why don’t you open your own museum?’ Yeah, I should have my own jet-plane too but I don’t.”

While people have been laughing at his antics for decades, Marin confesses that it took people a long time to take him seriously and respect his intelligence.

“No matter how hard I’ve tried to tell them how smart I am, they, kind of shrug it off and say, ‘OK, great,’” Marin said. “When I became the first 'Celebrity Jeopardy!' champion (in 1992), that went a long way. So now they take me seriously, but they laugh at my jokes too. So it’s a good win-win.”

When asked about when did marijuana become cannabis, Marin sheepishly answered that he’s not sure if the terminology ever did change.

“It’s always been the same thing for me,” Marin said. “You can wrap in a bunch of different wrappers but the end of the day it’s weed.”

Marin, who said he smoked his first joint when he was 19, said it was love at first toke.

“It was my second semester in college that I got introduced by my roommate. There was a party going in my apartment. I came home from work. And there were these cigarettes going around,” Marin recalled. “‘I tried it. And as soon as I took the second hit I thought, ‘Wow. What else are they lying about?’ It was nothing like you get addicted and steal money out of your mother’s purse and go to hell, in a short order.”

Although there might be some of Cheech & Chong’s adoring public that still think that Marin and Tommy Chong's classic comedy routines are a byproduct of getting totally baked and saying whatever came to their drug-induced mind as they spewed it raw and unfiltered into a tape recorder, Marin insists there’s nothing further than the truth.

“It takes a long and steady path to make those jokes,” Marin said. “But, over the years, I have done so many other things that they come to me with a bigger understanding now that we’re not those characters, unless we want to be.”

When 1978’s buddy stoner comedy “Up in Smoke” became a big hit, Marin said he wasn’t surprised.

“We have been a very successful recording and stage act for a long time. I expected it to be a big hit," Marin said. "But what really surprised me was the international reach…Kids around the world knew us from our records but when the movie came out it was a whole new ballgame.”

Marin — who cites Lenny Bruce, Redd Foxx and Richard Pryor  as his comedic influences — said Cheech & Chong were an unusual pair because they had Top 40 AM hits, which included  “Basketball Jones,” “Earache My Eye” and “Santa Claus and His Old Lady,’ while other comedy acts didn’t.

When asked the “Sophie’s Choice question” of picking out the undisputable, “Who’s On First” classic moment for Cheech & Chong, Marin, to his credit, answered without hesitation, “Dave’s Not Here.”

Two weeks after the classic comedy bit came out, Cheech & Chong played “The Bitter End” in New York, which was the first time the comedy duo played outside of L.A, Marin  said.

“We did ok the first night but our record promo guy came up to us and goes, ‘How come you guys didn’t do ‘Dave’? That’s a big hit here," Marin recalled. "I said, ‘Ok, how do we do ‘Dave,’ man, onstage?' And then the same guy came to us and said, ‘Do it in the dark. Yeah, do it in the dark, just do the voices. Come out, not even an introduction, just do the routine.’ And, we did and it was a huge hit. And, then we started doing it all the time.”

Despite the party hardy, Acapulco Gold persona, Marin confesses that he really wasn’t a big drug guy as he's portrayed in “Up in Smoke.”

“Not at all. I smoked weed and then I didn’t smoke for a long time too,” Marin said. “And I meditated religiously for many years and I still do but I do smoke a little more of weed now. It relaxes me but meditation helps rest my nervous system.”

When asked if he ever get high with Don Johnson, his costar on “Nash Bridges,” and Pee-wee Herman, who appeared in some of Cheech & Chong’s early movies, Marin laughed and said, “When did I not get high with Don Johnson and Pee-wee Herman? All the time.”

After all these years, Marin — who co-stars in the romantic comedy “Shotgun Wedding” with Jennifer Lopez and Josh Duhamel (coming out Jan 27 on Prime Video) and opposite Woody Harrelson in “Champions” (release date TBA) — said he has strongly believed that him and Chong were destined to meet each other or, quite possibly, a higher power had something to do with it.

“Why else would these guys meet? Why else would I move to Canada not knowing anything about Canada to exactly the same spot where he (Chong) was raised there?” Marin pondered. “Maybe God smokes weed.”

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Cheech Marin keynote speaker at HighLifeStyleShow